


Lucky

by Minion_Energon_101



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Fire, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grenades, Gun Violence, Happy Ending, Injury, Mission Fic, Rescue Missions, Rocket Launchers, Shotgun, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Torture, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-08-19 20:32:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16541735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minion_Energon_101/pseuds/Minion_Energon_101
Summary: The mission is simple: find where the Italian mobster who threatened their livelihood - and their weapons - is at and find all places he can hide, then burn the building to the ground as a deterrent as a warning if they can't find him.Of course, with a team like this, Spy has a hard time doing his job. And might need a rescue.





	1. Prep-Phase

**Author's Note:**

> All rights are reserved by Valve for characters and all likeness. This is canon based, so all characters are from the comic/shorts on YouTube and you only have one life!
> 
> I have no Beta reader, currently writing alone, and I am a bit rusty at writing. The first chapter is mostly short and bulky with the other two being longer, hopefully. Also, sorry if characters are OOC in any way for I am new!

The dust of the upcoming nightfall was coloring the sky in sour versions of the sun’s last purple, red, and pink the sun gave them this late in the day. Said dirty colors were being feed noxious gas, framing a factory with three smoke funnels in the back of a garage and warehouse. It wasn’t uncommon to see smog clouds the size of whales spilling out during dinner time and slowing to a crawl in the morning, says the locals. It’s probably run by people during day and machines into the night, the locals offer. I’ve never actually seen the inside of the building nor anyone going inside when I do see it, the locals complain. But it’s not fishy, they stress.

Like the Administrator was going to believe that for a second.

Inside the town, a camper van with an Australian stranger graces the town by sneaking four individuals into the heart of the city at noon. The gentlemen had been soft spoken, his eyes mellow and easy to trust, and had said he was simply here to refill his stock in his mobile home before he travels too far into the countryside. And he had, in a certain way. He had refilled the water tank in his home, he had cleaned some clothes and bed spreads in the laundromat, and had restocked on food. His visit was barely noticed, it was swift enough to be chalked up to an adventurous spirit.

So nobody really noticed the four men sneaking out of the camper with strange luggage and blueprints as the mobile home stopped to refill behind a hotel the owner had seemingly gotten lost behind. He got directions, and the hotel got four more occupants right under their noses. With the help of a sapped security system they seem to have forgotten.

Nobody noticed the sure-voiced American walking the halls with a huge backpack carrying grenades and multiple guns and knives of foreign origin. Nobody stopped a fair skinned man with one eye as his large luggage crate nearly popped open from whatever was barely fitting inside. Nobody seemed to notice these two men entering a room they clearly had to lockpick without a card in their possession, and letting two more men and some more objects in through the window. Nobody seemed to notice the thumping and swearing coming from the room and the shouts of French and Gaelic as the thumping got worse.

Soldier had said, as they got everything settled, that their entry had been expertly performed and processed to high five Demoman as he riled up the Scotsman with his jubilant remarks. Seeing high fives being thrown around, Pyro started to clap and jump in one spot in celebration at whatever had made the majority of the room happy. Spy had no such glee; in fact, he had been paranoid after all the noise they made and checked on the staff to see if they had been reported to the authorities yet. Spy had expected the rocky entrance, that was a given, but such disregard to a ruckus as bad as they made was… truly unforgivable if they weren’t reported.

And, supposedly, the staff rarely heard a thing. They didn’t even know the room now had a busted lock and couldn’t lock again. They hadn’t heard a peep, and the walls weren’t soundproofed here. This place was extremely shady, Spy decided, and walked back into the room without his cloak. Spy had half a mind to terrorize the staff for this blatant offense to his integrity as a mercenary, but he let it slide as not to leave his team to their own devices just yet.

What the thumping and banging had lead to was a semi-neat base of operations within the hotel. The backpack had been emptied and the contents distributed to their rightful owners, the luggage crate held larger weapons like a rocket launcher and flamethrower, and the two men from the window carrying all their plans attached to a warped corkboard and a crate with two of Engineer’s tool cases inside it.

After Pyro laid their weapons across the twin beds to count inventory, Soldier and Demoman pulled out a dusty desk from the corner of the room to lay out their plans across. Spy started to put colored push pins on the corked plans as the Soldier pulled up the only chair in the room to sit in it. It barely took a few seconds, but Demoman’s nerves got the better of him. He knelt

“They’re all either too stupid to see what's going on or they’re all benefiting from what’s going on in there. Either ways, whatever this signifies,” Spy’s accent grew thick as he slowly trailed a green pushpin across a map of the factory and its accompanied building to stick it in the billowing smoke funnel drawn on it. “It’s going to lead us to this Mr. Baroffio, or draw him to us.”

“I am not afraid to fight a Buffalo, or cause a ruckus.” Soldier stated from his fold out chair at the bottom of the desk, putting his hands on the board as if to flip it.

“Not a buffalo, Soldier. _Baroffio_ .” A thick Scottish accent piped in from the floor and the sound of a loading grenade launcher sounded in the background. “Kind of like… Like, uh, _Barfleur_ or something.”

“Bah.” Soldier scoffed out loud but didn't seem keen on giving up. Soldier reacted to what Demoman had told him but he drew a blank somewhere in processing it, as evident by his slowly morphing face of vacancy as he tried to process whatever he worked out. “Bar Flower?”

“No!” Spy raised his voice to halt anymore discussion of the topic, causing Soldier to shift his gaze and Demoman to pause in loading his weapon to cast a glance at the Frenchmen. “Just… call him ‘The Target’ for now, he’s not worth anymore struggle then to get what we want.”

Demoman started to slowly fill in the last spot in his launches cartridge and closed it as quietly as possible while the pregnant silence between the men stayed heavy. Soldier’s lips slowly shifted into a familiar frown that seemed to want to say something but allowed the silence to hang awkwardly. Demoman shifted from his kneeling position in front of the weapons crate to turn to the table of blueprints and pins behind him, putting the weapon on his back. Spy himself took a long drag from his cigarette to distill any tension in his brain and allowed the smoke to slowly filter from his mouth with no help as he looked down at the map.

He pulled a red pushpin from the board and held it up. “You three.”

He received no response, but that didn’t stop him from continuing as if he had been talking to himself. He pushed the pin into the warehouses garage door, where it seemingly held trucks that seemed to disappear and reappear at an alarming rate for supplies by daybreak.

“This is where you will enter once I,” Spy pulled a brown pushpin out and gestured to himself, placing it in the interior of the garage, “open the gates from the inside. I won’t know what disguise I’ll have to take, as we have zero inside intelligence outside of this layout. We’ll need a signal or…”

“A password?” Demoman finished, his thin lips parted under his thick facial hair in a sudden grin as he spoke. “How about _Barfleur_?”

Pyro made a noise of affirmative at the suggestion. But, maybe it was because Soldier had connected the word with a pretty plant that made Pyro agree. Either way, when Soldier let out a nod, Spy was outnumbered and let it be. It’s best not to fight about it anymore.

“This is where we’ll establish Engineer’s teleporter and sentry,” he pushed two thinner, non-distinct gunmetal pins into the board between two random truck ports in the garage. “It’s not much of a defense, and we’ll have to leave it unattended for a while…”

“Wait, why are we leaving the sentry there?” Demoman asked as he noticed they only had one teleporter and one sentry sitting on the hotels musty bed. “Shouldn’t we be taking it with us?”

While the orders weren’t the best, Spy could understand Miss Pauling’s reasons for them to carry light for this mission. And he’d do well to explain it to them why they didn’t have a mobile threat like the Pyro carrying a sentry bin on his back storming the place, and best to explain before Soldier gets hyped. “We only have so much muscle strength here. While I do feel like Pyro can carry a lot because of how he helps Engineer, that would severely slow us all down and leave Pyro weaponless. And its best not to build one of Engineer’s mobile bases inside a potential warzone, no matter how much we’d probably need a dispenser.”

That caused Pyro to start mumbling, they pointed at the smallest room attached to the garage and made to move the pins that represented the sentry and teleporter. Spy stopped them by laying his kid gloved hand over Pyro’s glove wrist.

“Pyro, I get its out in the open, but it’s the safest option. We can’t hold up in a storage closet.” Spy said softly as Pyro looked between him and the map almost in anticipation. “The sentry will suffer from, say, tunnel vision. If someone throws in a grenade, both machines are at risk…”

Suddenly, Soldier got in on the struggle from his seat and pulled out a pin out himself. “I get Miss Pauling’s ideas are naturally great, she’s American after all, but what if we actually did this without so much hassle!”

 

Demoman didn’t reach for the board or blurt out his opinions, but he sure wasn’t helpful as he smiled at the mess of swatting hands and flurry of pins being stabbed around. “You lads sure do know how to make a planning period look professional.”

“Tu n'aides pas!” _You’re not helping!_ Spy said in a passing remark as he put his arm on Pyro’s chest and pushed. “Will you both stop your infernal tampering!”

As Pyro was pushed back, they seemed to deflate a bit as Spy took their place and made Soldier drop whatever was in his hands. The three pins the Soldier had snatched were placed back in the corkboard away from the map of the factory with care, making the Spy anxious. This team was just a bundle of nerves; evident by Soldier’s extreme history of rages in battle and Pyro’s tendency to burn or maim things if he became too stressed about a situation to rid himself of it quickly; and Spy wasn’t about to let it cause them a mission.

“Apologies, but we are on a deadline.” Spy felt Demoman’s eye on him more so than the other two’s, assumedly because Demoman was most likely the only one who can see how that unprofessional situation actually made the Spy flush under his mask. “We only have three and a half hours until we are due at the factory at 0900. We must go over the plan, at least once.”

“Question.” Soldier raised his hand, face drawn neutral as he waited for Spy to notice him.

Spy let out a sigh. “Yes, Soldier?”

“What are we looking for, is it Intelligence?” Soldier asked as he leaned in. He wasn’t a man of many emotions, and while he wasn’t the sharpest member, he knew Miss Pauling never needed Pyro and Spy on the same team as Demoman and himself for certain types of missions. And he’d yet to find out why they’re team composition was useful here. “Or are we murdering the whole base?”

Soldier knew by now what certain types of people Miss Pauling distributed in teams meant different kinds of missions and wrap ups. Soldier being on a team with Demoman had three ways of going, either; pure carnage, demolition, or defense with a touch of punishment by rocket launcher. But with the Spy here and no Engineer or Medic, they obviously have a quick job to do and a job to do fast if he’s with Demo and Soldier. But with Pyro here that means they most certainly have a quick job to do, they have to be torturing someone or torching something.

Spy brightened up and straightened his back up from where he had leaned over the corkboard protectively. This, he could work with. “Thank you Soldier, I _almost_ got carried away.”

Spy left the corkboard alone and turned the TV stand where he had left the file on their target. He picked up the cream colored folder with a bunch of red stamps on the front courteous of the Administrators filing pattern. “We are going after a Marco Baroffio, an Italian man with a bad history with the Administrator. It says that while he only has loose ties to the mafia for unknown resources, he has stronger ties in the middle East with weapon dealers. He promised to be the broker between some estranged company and the Administrator, getting numerous amounts of money and weapons and took off with them all.”

Demoman came up behind him and viewed the file in astonishment. “Wait, someone tied directly to the Administrator? I thought we weren’t supposed to be involved with anyone in her private circle?”

“We aren’t, but the Administrator has got so few options with how much dirt this man has.” Spy said, handing the folder over. “He also has control of over two hundred of these factories across America, South America, Guam, Italy, and Ireland that the Administrator has eyes on. We’re simply hitting the biggest and most likely one to hold Baroffio himself.”

Soldier slowly came over but didn’t try to pry the information from Demo’s hands. Demoman brought the folder in between them so they could both see as they read. Sure enough, what Spy had said was in a large box at the bottom of the page. The folder contained one paper, and that was it. It wasn’t front and back or anything fancy, just a one page description. It had a photo of the man paperclipped to it, but it was enough to make them understand why Soldier and Demo had to bring their splash damage weapons along. It was hard to tell what height the man could probably be, but the source information listed him at 5’7’’ or 173.7 centimeters tall, and he was built like a box. His height wasn’t intimidating, nor his features; consisting of almond brown hair cut into a pompadour, oblong-like nose, green eyes, and freckles on his neck; but his sharp and shaved jaw and upper body reminded them of the Heavy in a certain but unfamiliar way. This guy had nothing comparable directly to their Heavy Weapons Guy, but he looked like he could fight a professional boxer to a standstill. Nothing too impressive or important to note otherwise. No tattoos, and no special features such as scars or birthmarks.

“He’s not much a fighter, unlike how he presents himself. Those muscles are for show.” Spy felt it best to jab at the man’s obviously pronounced ego and snubbed out his cigarette in a dusty ashtray. “He has no training except in business and he has a silver tongue only used to weasel his way out of situations he doesn’t prefer.”

“This guy is who we have to deal with?” Soldier asked. Soldier knew he was a last resort when it came to a lot of situations outside of fighting or espionage, but this was strange for him considering the guy wasn’t much of a fight.

“Yes… and no.” Spy said. “We have no idea if he’s even here and our main objective is to do two things. Find information on the stolen goods, and burn the building to the ground. That’s where Miss Pauling seemed to get a little confused on how to handle the situation, so I assume the Administrator has no faith that he’s actually here today.”

“What do we do if we find him?” Demoman asks and puts the folder down, his tone indecisive.

“Well, either we take him alive and burn the place down,” Spy let that part of the sentence stand alone for consideration before continuing, “or we burn the place to the ground, with him strapped in it. Either way, we have to leave no tracks, for Miss Pauling won’t be able to clean up this time for us.”

At the mention of burning, Pyro let out a long single mumble that might have been them dreaming of the idea happening in their head. Soldier let out a grin of no discernable emotion, but seemed eager, as a burning building means he usually has a large margin of error to work with in the end. And while Demoman wasn’t the horrifically malicious type to a complete stranger, even one’s who thieve off the Administrator, his skin had a phantom feeling of setting something ablaze and he let out a short, thoughtful nod. They all seemed in favor.

After all, Baroffio was an international threat. Might as well leave a sample of what they can do to those like him and to those who knew about the warehouse’s true purpose. For future reference, of course.  

“So, gentlemen, I’ll shorten the plan for you so we can all prepare…” The Spy said as he took in their grinning faces, his own spreading eagerly at their enthusiasm. “We must be on our _best_ behavior for our target.”

* * *

9 o’clock came, eventually.

The team had set up the exit teleporter within the dusty old room with the spare wrench the Engineer had given them, strangely being the Eureka Effect instead of the Jag. But, Engineer had taken one look at the file for their mission and packed in the specialized wrench before he headed off to his own mission elsewhere, telling Spy it’s for his own comfort. When Spy spent six minutes thinking about what that could mean coming from Engineer, he let it go, for he had thought up of no answers that didn’t well at his emotional side. When they had hit the exit teleporter with the wrench, they allowed it to take its time opening up to save metal, and built up the other two building they would needed them. They first got the dispenser up to level three, slowly with the Eureka Effect’s lack of metal pickup, and next the sentry to level three at the same rate.

Once Pyro, the one using the wrench to do the incredible skill of beating a machine to advance it, finished with his job he turned to put his weapons in place. Phlog, default shotgun, and Homewrecker mallet all put into his hands as Demoman picked up the folded up dispenser and sentry while Soldier picked up the teleporter entrance. Pyro had the newly filled Eureka Effect in their jumpsuits sash, holding onto it without letting his hands leave his Phlog. Spy lead them outside after dragging the teleporter exit into hiding behind the twin beds as cover and jamming the door with a well placed Your Eternal Reward in it’s hinges.

Sneaking down the halls, four men walking together carrying heavy items should have caused for suspicious tenants to peak outside, but Spy calmed their paranoid nerves of being heard by telling them how shady this place was earlier today. While the backdoor was still sapped and all alarms in the building this far back were down, they were able to leave using the emergency exit in the back. The darkening winter sky was strangely still filled with the feigning sunset by 9 o’clock, but that wasn’t a big deal to them in the long run; just interesting enough to mesmerize Demoman into letting out a sharp whistle of admiration at the Brazilian sky. But they moved. They moved as fast and as silently as they could through the night.

Spy, being the fastest of all four of them, hurried onto a seemingly abandoned parking lot full of used cars that were barely stripped of parts and picked up the most useful load bearing vehicle he could find for the time being. While he had no doubt his team was able to carry the Engineer’s contraptions he didn’t think they had time or patience to wade there on foot just to sit outside waiting for him, and he was also sure they’d be spotted in such a tourist heavy city running down the road as packing as they were. He spotted a unmarked, not too old, probably city created taxi that seemed to have the keys broken inside the ignition slot. At least they had a probable way of getting around before they had to disappear.

He waited for them to get into the vehicle and he slipped under the dashboard to get the vehicle working. He fumbled with the wires as Soldier, sitting in the back with Demo, started to give him instructions when he got his fingers zapped and even asked if he needed a third hand. Spy, with kid gloves on, gladly accepted the help and let Soldier lean across the seat gap and help him under the steering wheel.

Not a minute or two later, the car started and Soldier withdrew to the back of the car to buckle himself in for the bumpy ride ahead. Spy knew little of Jane Doe’s actual past, everyone did except the Administrator and presumably Ms. Pauling, and wanted to know where the man had learned to hotwire a car with all his American jargon in his head. But he’d save that for another day. Another thing to claw into.

As the Spy put the beat-up in reverse and tried to pull out of the parking lot, Demoman pulled out a walkie-talkie and flipped a switch to make it flood out white noise into the car.

He pulled it towards his lips and held the button down. "Sniper, you ready fir evacuation?"

"En route to your hotel." Sniper replied after a pregnant pause full of white noise. "Stay safe."

Demoman chuckled, "No promises, mate." And he put the walkie-talkie away after flipping the switch again.


	2. Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to bust in and raise hell itself.

The sun was gone, and with the sun went any apprehension of when to strike. Spy was in his best element when it became dark, even when handling a vehicle that barely made it past the first inch of the gravel driveway without its entire being shaking and rattling. There wasn't much place to hide this far out without being stuck and/or leaving yourself in the open, and when the vehicle let out a really bad shudder and Soldier didn’t feel safe buckled up anymore they knew Spy couldn’t be serious when he kept going. They were right next to a forest, they were surrounded by forest, and if it weren’t for the factory being manufactured in a sort of synthetic grove of no trees then they would driving through a forest. Surely, they didn’t need this hunk of junk much longer when they could park it in the trees and walk away.

Soldier let out a small grimace as he slowly slid in his seat, his seat belt holding his abdomen and chest only barely as his head rocked side to side. “I no longer enjoy being here.” It was a direct statement, possible a suggestion if anyone wished to continue the conversation. “I believe I am sick.”

The driver was quiet as Soldier spoke, taking it like he’s been doing for the past while and ignoring it for now, leading to Soldier to look out the window with a groan. Pyro seemed unaffected and remained unspoken in the passenger seat, but the likelihood of them being effected was up for serious debate if they ever get to it. Demoman, since he had felt the first dip in the vehicle, had stuck his knees into the sides of the driver's seat to hold his person in place with no seatbelt in his seat originally anyway. When Demoman began to rock around, he knew Soldier wouldn’t last long in this state as well and his left hand was on the head cushion of the driver’s seat to pull himself up behind Spy’s head.

“Spy, we don’ need the vehicle anymore, we c’n just walk.” The Scotsman said as he looked out the front view window to take in their destination.

Pyro was the one who answered, letting out a long string of mumbles that made Demo feel like they were simply doing it to do it, not actually to communicate, because he had little idea what they were saying in such a low tone. Sure, he never understood Pyro much anyway with their mask on, but it wasn’t hard to catch a meaning or an emotion usually when they started. Now, it was just a low hum behind the fire retardent gas mask that seemed to follow up with a small time frame of their words being replaced by a wet gasp of some sort. Was Pyro car sick as well? Usually, Soldier was the only one to show signs, but…

“I understand how you all feel.” Suddenly, Spy seemed to not be giving them the silent treatment anymore as Demo pulled himself closer to his teammates seat. “It’s not pleasant, but we’ll need zhis vehicle when we get the job done.”

“How would we need this clunker when we’re telepotin’ out?” Demo asked and noted Spy’s heavier breathing as the Frenchmen tried to maneuver a very bad hole in the road.

“We know what we’ll find in here. And a lot of it is flammable, as we all know.” Answered Spy. “And zhis car may be old, but it holds gasoline… And our DNA in it… We can’t just abandon it for, say, Baroffio or someone elze to find.”

Pyro seemed to chuckle under their breath as Spy let that sit in the air for a second, they chuckled until the car jostled them and Pyro groaned instead. The Soldier stayed silent in his suffering, but they can all tell how he was fairing.

“I can get behind that, mate, but we’re all struggling here...” Demo wasn’t even sure he needed to hear Soldier groan to know he was still falling through a rabbit’s hole.

“I’m never a fan of driving zhis far into a forest, much less in Brazil, _much less_ a small industrial property for zhis reason.” Spy said as he pulled off to the side and into the grass, pushing the breaks only softly to slow them down a little.

A small round of clapping could be heard from the seat next to Demoman’s head and Soldier let out a large gasp to clear his head of its current state. Spy slowly started to turn the wheel into the forest and slowed the vehicle into a speed not faster than a walking man. While the moon provided enough light to go off of for a bit, and the warehouse lit up yellow not a sports field away, the forest was like a veil of black ink to all who notice it. The thick, lively green the trees would be during the day is almost a pure dark green color that seemed to ring around the thick black like a portal.

The vehicle wasn’t driven straight into the forest in hopes of cutting through it, no. The forest was obviously overgrown and very much not willing to allow such an oddity like a vehicle to trespass its boundaries. From what you’d be able to see, ferns acted as a camouflage for tree roots large enough to sweep the wheels from under the car if you just drove right in. One tree in particular seemed to have it’s branches and it’s roots wrapped all around it’s closest neighbors like a predator or parent, leaving little room elsewhere. Creepers hanged between trees that touched and even from ones that had a feet feet of space between each other to seemingly tie the forest together in a lush version of a monitor room. Large pillars of metal and information streaming together by dozens of wires per machine had nothing on this.

Spy wasn’t stupid enough to pull forward too much when entering the foliage. He weaved between two trees and slowly let the car push forward through the overgrowth. Grass, tall enough to brush the headlights and even reach the slanted front of the car, slowly gave way as they made their way closer to the warehouse under the veil of darkness.

“Mate, if we’re using the vehicle,” Demoman started as Spy started to look for a place to pull out safely, “How is this part of the plan goin’ to go? We started off with ye distractin’ ‘em, and gettin’ us inside. No vehicles there.”

Spy knew this part of the plan had been improvised to some extent, the original full length plan had had them ditching the vehicle a while back, preferably where they could burn it in relative comfort. But he had no real reason to have changed Ms. Pauling’s original plan, other then him giving his team the luxury of a swift transport to combat and easy transport of their gear. Really, he’d gone on impulse ever since he saw his first opportunity to ditch the car and hadn't. He had no idea why, but he was ashamed of it.

“The plan hasn’t changed, we’re still doing everything we explained, but it looks like you three will be driving a car inside with you.” Spy answered, looking at the forest's edge and pointing the cars nose towards the buildings garage.

Spy looked to his left and noted the stick stift, reaching over to put them in park. When the vehicle stopped making most of the noise and Spy turned off a lot of the vehicles extra features to make the car as quiet as possible, the area around them flooded into silence before other noises picked up the vehicles slack. While the engine was a familiar man made noise, when the blood in their ears slowly drowned away they were rewarded with the softest noise of crickets, cicadas, nightowls, and a mysterious humming white noise that filtered in with the factories air filtration in the background.

Spy moved himself to the edge of his seat and put his hand on the doors handle. He didn’t turn on his team as he addressed them. “When you see that garage door open, I’ll make sure to drop my disguise for you if I can afford it. Otherwise, do not go in.” He stressed the next sentence. “Please, do not leave the vehicle for any reason until I open the path, Demoman can drive from here.”

Spy pulled the handle and he swiftly left the car, keeping the door ajar. Since the vehicle was in park, the engine was still running and let out a high pitched beeping noise while the door stayed open. Demoman quickly maneuvered his way into the front seat to take his place and close the door. He shimmied his way up front by standing with his back against the ceiling and bringing his left foot to stretch all the way in front of the driver’s seat to reach across and close the door. As soon as he shut it, they were drowned in darkness and Demoman slid himself in the driver’s seat to wait for Spy.

Soldier spoke up as he looked out into the clearing. “Can I open the window?”

“Ay.” Demo said and soon, the sound of a window being manually rolled down behind him. Demoman looked out the front view window and noticed how Spy seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

Typical.

* * *

The factories entire outside is lit up by stadium lights in about a sixty feet radius and Spy almost felt apprehensive with walking into the light with how bright the ring was around the building. He felt confident in his cloaking tech to not leave a shadow behind of him, his technology was not cheap nor was it second-class, but he didn’t know the terrain or what kind of traps they might have. Nonetheless,his body never stopped progressing to the closest wall he could get his back to.

The second he got his back to the cold brick wall, he drew his Ambassador into his hands and slowly slinked around. His rubber soles dug into the dry dirt around the storage building and Spy almost cursed as the dead grass began to dip under his feet. His, probably, only dead giveaway being this close to a random spot outside. But he pressed on with little mind to the grass he trampled.

He crept along until he got to the corner of the building before a wide wall of garage doors sat for deliveries. He put his head almost flush against the back of the rustic burgundy and orange-red bricked building to listen for any sign of noise or alerted guards. He heard the regular humming of machinery and, possibly, a man or two barely in distance of the garage door just behind Spy. Spy peeked into their conversation to hear if they were of any use before he infiltrated the base to gut them all.

But the men were so far away it was almost impossible to hear, especially with all the machinery in the background. Spy scoffed and tried his best to listen.

“... _nada_. Zilch. Zero…” One complained before tumbling off into swears and scoffing at what seemed to be a lousy paycheck.

“Shut it, _imbécil_ … pay raises come later… labor, _niño._ ” Another man, older, but not in as bad a mood. Soon after he had spoke, he let out a sigh as the younger man scoffed in his direction to tell him about not being a child and to have some respect.

All in fluent _Mexican_ Spanish.

They weren't speaking Brazilian, or a natural Spanish for people this far into the country to be speaking alongside Portuguese to talk to their Hispanic border allies. Flat out Spanish. And Spy got no indication that these men were in any way intelligent enough to learn more then two languages with how bad either accents stuck out in English. The way certain words fell out almost felt like English was simply in place to make things convenient for them, not be an asset in their arsenal. What a pity, even if he still thought better of French overall, languages were still very fascinating and useful to the Spy. He hated seeing them so butchered.

Kind of like the Scout’s English… or like the Engineer’s vernacular, almost. Scout’s crude nature was far more unpleasant than Engineer’s strange America dialect, though. But, he can never let the inventor with eleven PhD’s live down the fact he called his slippers “slippees” in the preparation phase of a battle not a year ago. Not when Pyro had fawned over the word like it was a new puppy and gained a cult teasing circle consisting of Spy, Demo, Scout, and Sniper.

Yes, even Sniper.

But, that was something irrelevant to his current task, so he tried his best to suppress his fondness for the memories. He toned back in to the thugs behind him and let his mind filter the human voices from the machine voices in his head, trying to grasp the straws of English and Spanish he was dealt. He heard the men behind the garage entrance start to swear up and down about some girl in the native town that spit on them as they flirted, and he was almost tempted to turn and shoot when the younger one said they “taught her a lesson”. But the older man did the jeering for him at his comrade, making disgusting accusations about the boy’s family in turn. That caused a cat fight with biting remarks and a swift, lewd sentence of departure as feet retreated.

Never mind, they were nothing like Scout or Engineer. Not in any way, shape, or form. At least Scout meant well when he teased his team, never really threatening anyone’s siblings or anything.

He had no idea how he could connect these obvious thugs to his team, even if Scout was a bit of a bully himself in a lot of circumstances, but he quickly stopped it when he decided these men were of not worth anymore time. Time to progress. He turned his head back and pulled his pistol from his coat, flipping the full cartridge once to be safe from paranoia it’ll have an empty slot. He pulled a small, circular watch from his pocket and flipped it open, turning invisible almost instantly.

He pushed himself from the wall and took off around the corner swiftly, but quietly. His eyes spotted the six closed doors that cars and trucks were supposed to use to enter the building and traced the area as he moved. There was an Emergency Exit that read _Pessoal_ and had a large enough lock on it to deter Spy from picking it just yet. And standing in front of it, he spied a man, maybe in his fifties with dark skin and black hair that was on the edge of greying all over his head. Spy felt misfortune for him, it was the older man who was at least semi-civilized who stood in front of him.

And his necklace with a golden cross on it had a stupidly large key on it. Meaning he had to die first and foremost, before his friend decided he needed to get back to fighting the man.

Spy squatted a bit and turned his jogging pace into a small gallop as he drew near the target, his eyes taking in all the facts of the man’s physic need he start to wrestling the man if his backstab didn’t hit a vital spot. But he had confidence, as the man was no taller than Pyro and no bigger than Engineer.

As he drew near, he picked up a rock and tossed it at a pile of beer bottles tipped over by the Emergency Exit, causing a startling amount of glass to implode and make noise. The man jumped and let out an undignified yell as he turned to the glass behind him. His back was exposed to Spy in an instant, Spy’s trained wrist flipping his stoic Balisong upside down in anticipation. Dead Ringer still in hand, Spy dropped his cloak very loudly behind the man and brought his knife right between his shoulder blades and into his spine before he even let out a scream.

Spy had heard it many times in the past. The sound of a scream, the final resignation of life, die before it even left the throat. It rarely happened normally, as it was a physical impossibility for someone to die so instantaneous, yet slow enough to have started a scream in the first place. Maybe he had pinched a neck nerve in the stab, maybe.

He watched the man fall forward, lifeless, and caught the man around the chest to pull him backwards. Spy let the body drape across his chest as he set the body on the ground, putting his Dead Ringer away to rip the necklace off the man as he bleed into the dirt and grass. He slowly pulled the key off the string and put the other materials in the deceased man’s pocket.

The Frenchmen dragged the man beside the door by the pile of glass he had disturbed earlier and let the man lay against the wall, almost drunk looking. Spy closed the man’s eyes and put him close to the bottles in case the younger man came back to check on him before Spy could backstab him too. It might give Spy a few extra seconds of confusion if he needed it, wherever the other man had fled.

He walked up to the door and started to hassle the lock into flipping rightside up so Spy could unlock it without trouble. He felt the key glide in and he turned it to the left to hear its mechanisms pop open, letting him have access to the building. He looked around as he put the key in his coat pocket and brought out his Dead Ringer, turning invisible quickly. He looked up at the industrial light above the door frame and brought his fingers up to twist it gently.

Without taking the lightbulb out of the socket, the electricity was still severed from the bulbs copper end.

The small entrance was drown in darkness as he made his way into the building.

* * *

Pyro pointed and looked at Demoman at the spectacle he had just seen. They let out a string of mumbles to signify they what they thought of the show, and it seems pleasant.

“Ay, I saw ‘im.” Demoman agreed as he watched from the same window as Pyro. “‘E can sure move when he’s got an audience.”

Truth be told, Demoman barely saw the Spy’s work from anything but a mutual perspective. If Demoman was throwing out stickies to set traps, he most likely saw Spy running into enemy lines with a disguise on or a starting shimmer of invisibility. If Demoman ever was in mid-air and spotted Spy, he was too adrenaline filled to recognise his teammates handiness as the enemy sentries shut down without Demo’s help. He was pretty sure the Spy was professional and proficient like this always, but he’d never truly know.

Just watching the man move was like watching… the Scot didn’t even know, he had no words to accurately describe it. He hated it in the pit of his stomach, for many reasons, but it was almost a form of art you could respect to a certain degree.

Spy will never know though, as Demoman was very keen and set in his ways of calling his ally a snake. And the Frenchmen wasn’t one to take abuse without retaliation and evened the score by giving the Scot the nickname Cyclops, which everyone used now apparently. So they were even.

He still left Demo stunned as the man disappeared from sight and then took the light by the door away as he went.

“How long do you think he’ll be in there?” Soldier asked, head peeking out of the window. “We’ve only got so long before morning.”

Never say Jane Doe doesn’t have his moments. While the man was a ton of laughs when he seemingly thought they were all American and when he was rather agreeable when addressing anyone who could hold their nose up to him like Spy or Heavy, he was a still a man after all. He had a circadian rhythm, he had a sense of time, and he had a lot of basic functions down to instinct. He had more than the basics, and his own sets of skills, but none of them could prepare him for his greatest adversary.

Being stealthy in the bushes. And being unseen and unheard for an undetermined amount of time. While Demo knew Soldier was able to sneak around a bit, he knew Soldier wasn’t much of a waiter for other people to do the job for him.

“A get it, Solly.” Demo said and pulled a bottle from the center consoles cup holder, bringing it to brush his lips. “Waitin’s a real _bitch_.”

He threw his head back, and with it the bottle, drinking a large amount of alcohol as Soldier pulled his head to look at him in the car.

It wasn’t the waiting that bugged him. It was the unknown, well, _everything_ that could be happening as they sit and wait. For all they knew, they had been spotted long ago using one of the many backroads this place had and this place was a trap. And Spy went in alone to said trap. Soldier couldn’t fathom the amount of possibilities of Spy being captured and them just sitting here, waiting for him to come out.

Soldier brought his head slowly back to the open window and stared at the closed door Spy entered, frowning. His throat grew dry just staring at the building, time flying past without any recollection as Soldier stared the building down in hopes he’ll see familiar movement amongst the wall or doorways.

He had faith in the spy… he hoped. He just sat there, watching on as Spy did god-knows-what inside the factory.

* * *

The inside of the factory wasn’t unlike that of the warehouse they sometimes fought robots in Boston. The layout was much more flat and actually had assembly lines instead of shipping containers and random elevations in it for shipments. This place had the car ports that were about a foot under the regular elevation and had a small ramp to push up dolly’s and crates, and that was it for elevated surfaces here.

The conveyor belts weren’t any higher than Spy’s waist and were currently in use. Machines that had arms and held up pressers that would come down and do a specific task, machines for stamps on metal pieces, and machines that simply put the pieces together. The locals must have people who sneak in out of curiosity, that or they knew the building was running machines all night anyways, because they got a few details right. Rows upon rows of machines working in clockwork to each other and disappeared as you went deeper in the room.

Spy tiptoed around, but not silently. The room was heavily ventilated and all the machines, taking in the air pumped into the room and that left Spy with a lot of wiggle room as he quickly searched the room for targets. In his search, he found the manual garage controls, so that wasn’t a total waste of his precious time.

His long, loud strides barely registered as he continued into the garage, but he was still apparently noticeable. He heard a Spanish accent call out into the room for a _Hector_ and suddenly, Spy knew where to go. He made his way through a random line of linear machines to see a young, dark skinned man with a beer in his hands looking around in confusion. He must have either heard the door opening near a minute ago or he was trained enough to hear Spy’s footsteps on the concrete landing while he was jogging.

Either way, when Spy got up right behind him, Spy swiftly decloaked and brought his left arm to smother the man’s face in his jacket. The man was screaming into Spy’s expensive suit and his hands started to wrestle the man arm for freedom. Before the man could think to start biting him, Spy plunged his Balisong straight into the man’s neck horizontally to kill him. The blood that flew like a geyser from the swiftly made wound didn’t last long as the body settled with just allowing the man to bleed out like a river, even when dead and limp in his arms. Once the man was truly lifeless and gone, the mercenary pulled his weapon out of the man and let him fall ungracefully to the floor. He’d already wasted enough time and they had a mission at stake here. Plus, the body was going to burn anyways with the building.

Spy did a final sweep of the room uncloaked to make sure he hadn’t missed anyone and made his way to the garage door console. He flipped a switch to unlock all the doors and pulled a lever that hung off to the side labeled with a number 3 out of convenience.

Slowly, but noticeably, the third garage door started to open and Spy made his way across the concrete floor to signal his team inside. His long stride carrying him almost like dance down the loading ramp and into the darkness of night through the gates opening.

* * *

“‘E didn’ even need a disguise.” Demoman started and quickly turned the broken ignition to force the car to start. The vehicle whined as its engine awoke to pump out fuel to start moving.

Soldier had perked up the minute he saw the giant steel door in the middle start to recede upward into the building. The harsh blue-white light of the inside factory splitting out into the darkness and yellow-orange light of the stadium lights outside. He watched on for a second to see if Spy would appear in another man’s skin and give them a brief scare before showing his mask covered face.

But, he was pleasantly surprised to just see Spy walk out of the building cloaked and undisguised, almost like if anyone else had done the job.

Anyways, it was nicer than seeing the usual Spy entrance.

As Demoman pulled the vehicle from the shrubbery and into the light, trying to be as fast as he can, Spy pulled a cigarette out and lit it with a lighter from his jacket suit pocket as they moved in. He took his steps back inside as the car followed in behind him into the car port. As soon as Spy got up the ramp, the other three burst into action to release themselves from the car that held all their stuff. Spy made his way to the controls to push the third lever back into place, sealing them inside.

Demoman popped open the trunk after he got all his weapons in gear. Grenade Launcher, Sticky Bomb Launcher, and Eyelander all strapped onto his back and hip as he picked up the teleporter entrance and dispenser from the trunk of the car and moved up the ramp to dispose of them. Soldier, picking up his Rocket Launcher, Shotgun, and Shovel had the sentry in hand, but barely set it anywhere far by placing it on top of the car. Pyro let out a few mumbles in confusion at the placement, but just allowed it as he swung the Eureka Effect to hit that sentry once to activate it.

As the sentry began to unfold into a level three, Pyro ran up the ramp with his loadout ready to help Demoman set up the other two parts in turn. The Phlogistinator against his back making his finger twitch as he swung at the teleporter entrance to make it go. When Demoman held onto the dispenser and never placed it down, Pyro swung the wrench around and started to mumble in confusion behind his mask.

As soon as Pyro was done, Demo shifted its weight in his hand. “We’re causin’ a lot of destruction today, mate, we’re gonna need this on the frontline with us.”

Pyro didn’t say anything to that. Probably because he didn’t care, or he thought it smarter then leaving it to be target practise for anyone who preyed upon this room when they left. Sure, Pyro could Eureka back to the hotel without the need of the entrance, but his team needed the teleporters up and running to make it back to the hotel for pickup. And they had no Medic, nor Engineer to keep the dispensers up consistently as they got destroyed or damaged in the struggle. Pyro let Demo be as he made his way to Spy, who was standing in the center of the room, smoking away.

Putting the Eureka Effect away, Pyro stood empty handed in front of the Spy. The French assassin following the Pyro carefully with his eyes, even if he was sure this was his team and not some Spy from BLU or something. The Pyro pulled up beside him and made a _move along_ gesture with his arms, ushering the Spy to start the next phase plan from here.

Spy pulled the cigarette from his lips, and so with it went his calmed state. He had no reason to be tense now, but his stomach just kept doing small flips to drive him paranoid. He waited for Soldier to come from the car port and he made his move to inform the team.

“It iz time I take off again.” Spy gained their attention quick, and with it, spoke quick. “I will be retrieving files from upstairs. Pyro, make zure to cut the gas line in zhe car and get those barrels of gas next door zpread evenly about the bottom floor. Demoman, zee if you can get some damage done on the second floor. Soldier, make as much noize as you want. Now, if you’d all be so kind…”

Spy watched his team slowly start to glow as his words punctated with him dragging his cigarette once to calm himself. Pyro brought out has Phlog and made a low, long laugh as his tas was given for the while. Demoman, dispenser bouncing as he waved his launcher around above him in cheers, was obviously ready to cause some havoc. Soldier cocked his shotgun and pointed it forward as he trained his eyes in anticipation of the door bursting open.

“And prepare zhis place to blow sky high.”

* * *

All was quiet tonight. All was quiet most nights if you forget the machines working downstairs once you stepped out of his soundproofed office. Ever since he had gotten his generous donation from his friend in Rio and the Administrator, he had to ward off few but very skilled assassins since his theft. He felt his cheek as he left his office, feeling the scar caused by a lucky bastard the Administrator had sent after him in Italy six months ago. No other had gotten that close, he made sure he hid away after dealing with his assailant back then and seemed to be doing good till today. The thugs he hired might be a bit of the brutish and inattentive types, but now he felt kind of insulted that those _boors_ had managed to sneak a car in.

A **car**. And none of his so called security had seen it happen. Hell, they were quiet about all their work but it wasn’t like you can mistake a car moving across your lawn through a window in your office. He took his hand from his scar and moved it to pinch his nose as a rather small man opened the door to the back stairwell, contemplating his course of action as he felt the building shake and voices carry out across the three floors of his warehouse. He snapped his fingers and the small man that followed him pulled two walkie-talkies from his pockets. Baroffio listened as one was going off with questions and accusations, his Hispanic workers seemingly getting a tongue lashing from his Italian mobsters he had working as superior officers. He wanted to smile, he really did, but he didn't have the time or emotion to pull it off. Even if nobody could see him.

He pressed down the button and all chatter stopped, he spoke up. His Italian accent long been diminished by his stay in America and American influenced countries. “They came in through da garage. Bombard them, you vulgarians. They’re here for _our_ turf, and for that _bitch_ no less. Take them out!”

He didn’t even take a second glance at the walkie-talkie as he threw it at his assistant. The man barely caught it from what he heard but he was too busy with his next plan of action. His second walkie-talkie was brought up in a split second, and he held the button down to speak.

“Get to flushing them out, men. I trust you more than I do des idiots, just get them out of my hair.” He let go of the button and took his last step onto the bottom of the stairwell.

The radio responded back with a deep, Italian, “Roger, sir.” And no more.

He looked out from the bottom of the stairs to the fork in the hallways passing. One way was completely sealed off from everyday use and had a number of locks and bolts attached to it, the other was a hard to access escape route that lead to a small garage with an escape vehicle in case of situations like this. He scoffed at the idea of running away from these ninny’s, they were no more an obstacle to his future profit then the assassin six months ago was. _And guess where he ended up_?

Baroffio used several keys to undo seven different locks before he used his hands to undo three bolt locks on the door, taking a bit of time even if he was familiar with the system down here. He swung the door open and allowed himself into the glass hallways specifically made to implode incase he was pursued down this way towards his hidden stash. He wasn’t frantic, his heart wasn’t beating out of his chest in fear… He was just anticipating the fight he was about to bring upon these interlopers. Yes.

His heart stopped as he looked out his layered, one-way mirror glass wall that briefly connected to one certain hallway to see a man… woman… _freak_ in a jumpsuit and breathing mask walking almost in clockwork of him down an adjacent hallway. The freak barely wavered as it dropped the punctured oil drum it was carrying to shotgun down some of his men that came around the corner too fast to stop themselves. Blood splattered against the window and Baroffio could only stare as the freak came back into vision from behind the blood with the oil drum dragging behind it, dumping some on the bodies before moving onwards.

 _They were going to burn him out_. Murder all the men that did not run and hide from them elsewhere, they were going to burn down all his hard work and… and…

Baroffio took deep breaths as he continued to stare out the one-way mirror that had gone unnoticed by the monster, his whole body trembling. His face was hot and he felt like he was sweltering in his decoy outfit of denim jeans and a white t-shirt. His eyes watched as the freak stood at the end of the hallway, probably deciding if it needed to oil down the rooms or the walls or…

It slowly turned in his direction, right at the window it shouldn’t be able to see through, and stared straight at him. It’s shoulders started to bounce uncontrollably in what Baroffio could only assume to be laughter.

Baroffio watched the freak pull the oil drum -- how much oil did the damn thing _have_ \-- into a hug and start to shake it at the end of the hall, slowly going left at the hallways end to walk up some stairs. The freak was making a whole roundabout, it seemed. It was going up to the work area where he had people at desks in the morning, and Baroffio can tell that room will burn down the easiest with all the wooden furniture and carpet to accommodate the “honest” few workers he had. He was about to faint, just watching the brain matter and skull pieces slid down the glass as the blood caked the window…

He was about to move on, his assistant behind him shaking like a leaf at the image behind the window snapping him back into his game plan, when an oil drum as thrown down the stairs. It was empty. The Italian watched, for one second, as the freak jumped the entire flight of stairs to meet the drum at the bottom and drew it shotgun to arm itself for the walk back to its natural supply of gas. The things boots were mixed with the red blood of humans, and the yellow stain of gasoline as it stocked back the way it came.

Once its feet crushed a man’s arm for being in its way, Baroffio could stand no more. He took off down the hall, hand on the wall to keep himself from falling to his knees, and to the hidden door at the end. His heart no longer could beat any faster, but his hands were shaking like a leaf in a tornado, and it was too late to calm down now. Not after what he just saw. _What the hell did that crazy bitch send after him_? And there were more then two of them, he saw that from the cars windows when he spotted it, so _who knows what could be after him_.

He pulled and barely registered each lock he undid as he fought with himself to actually be able to do this. He swung the door open and let the room flood with bright yellow light and…

Before he even had the chance to recognize what he was looking at, he heard glass shattering and a loud gunshot ring off from a shotgun. _The freak was here_. It found him, it was going to kill him, it was going to do god knows what to him while he was alive… He… It…

It a blind panic, he pushed his assistant away from him and closed the door behind him. He couldn’t trust anyone, he didn’t even care for his elite team with all their loyalty and trust in him to lead them to victory. And he wasn’t about to let some small office worker slow his progress. He wanted to live.

Drowning out the cries of the man behind the door, begging him to let him in and all those other cliche begs for dear life, he made his way across the bright room and to the pile of precious metal he had stashed away from his theft of the trade he was supposed to conduct for the old hag and his ex-boss. He picked up one giant, pre-shredded bag of the substance up and had to calm down enough to use it, or he might just drop it on his toes. He could barely hear the man outside now, his entire existence pending upon this precious super-metal the Administrator can’t get enough of with… a man fighting a kangaroo on it?

The sound of flames licking the metal door and a man screaming at the top of his lungs on the other side reached his ears. He soon gave up on trying to calm himself down and just put some on the table in front of him. He took a handful, cupped it graciously, and threw his head back to take some orally. It was coppery and tasted worse then any penny would taste, but he felt… he… felt…

* * *

_The bad man in front of him was throwing a tantrum at being shoved aside by the bigger man that locked himself in his room. Was Pyro going to have to be the adult here? They probably had to be, seeing as the man was crying and balling his eyes out in sorrow at his friends rudeness._

_Pyro felt their shoes become sticky and noticed they were stepping in the spider's-web from earlier and quickly dusted his shoes off by Pyro skipped on over from the spider-web they had to jump through to assist the man who was on his tiny knees, and they helped pick him up from his seat on the floor, drying his tears away as they set him on his feet._

**Truthfully, the glass under Pyro’s feet slowly crunched from the window they had shattered with their blast. They knew they had been there the whole time and felt kind of bad for them, they were trapped based on what the schematic Spy provided said.** **_They’d have to thank Spy for the knowledge later_** **. After they saw Baroffio enter the room, they knew the meat shield man in front of them was as good as dead. No help was coming.**

**They walked closer to the man and the man fell further onto the floor, as if that would save him from Pyro. Pyro allowed him a second of comfort -- whatever he could find with Pyro standing above him -- and yanked him by his shirt collar onto his feet. The man didn’t even fight them, just kept screaming in their face. It grew tiresome and Pyro made a threatening gesture near the victims eyes.**

_Oh, they accidentally got some web on their new friends face._

**Oh, they had gas on their gloves from the oil drum outside. And the man had it on him now.**

_They best be a good guy and clean it off, as they had put it there in the first place. Silly, silly!_

**Pyro knew Baroffio was listening, the metal door wasn’t soundproof or anything. Might as well burn off the extra oil before Pyro had to get back to work.**

_Pyro drew out his hose…_ **Pyro’s Phlogistinator was familiar in his hands…** _And straightened up his friend, since he only had so much water to use here…_ **The man was trying to escape, so they slammed him against the door one time before they began to spew flames…** _Man, he must be ticklish! He was laughing, and he was swatting water around too! How fun!_ **The man was screaming, his agony billowing out into the halls as every body part was licked and eaten by flames. Now he was swinging around like a idiot unlike earlier, how funny.**

 _As Pyro got done, they noticed the man was tired. Pyro wanted to scold the naughty man for wasting so much energy on something like a tantrum, but they kept quiet as they embraced the man and slowly lulled him to rest in their arms. The man must have been_ **_dead_ ** _tired after all the fuss he made, so Pyro…_ **Let the man’s corpse fall to the floor after that, charred.**

 **The man’s gags and gasps had long died out, and Pyro was okay with that.** _It proved he was asleep! And they can go teach the other one a_ **_lesson_** _._

_They tapped on the door gently, as to be nice and considerate of the man’s space…_

_No answer…_

**They pounded next. He couldn’t have gotten away through anyway but where Pyro stood. They pounded again, and again.**

_Now, that was just rude!_

**Time to burn the door down. It was all they had left here anyways. Spy will want to torture Baroffio and get that information quickly before Demo or Pyro themselves got too trigger happy.**

**Pyro brought their flamethrower level with the door and let the Phlog start to heat the door. It didn’t begin to warp just yet, but they could see it start to smoke and turn red hot. They kept silent as they melted the door, the hinges giving a whine in protest at Pyro’s assault.**

**_There we go… Just a little longer…_ **

Almost before the door began to give slightly, it burst open with the force of a speeding train. Pyro threw themselves to the floor in hopes that the door didn’t touch them. While they loved the flames, they made sure to take precautions against hurting themselves. And a flying red hot steel door would probably hurt more than a normal flame will.

Pyro successfully dodged the oncoming debris. They lay in the remains of the broken window they caused. Actually, the glass hallway that had been hidden behind the mirror was now all cracked from the tremors and brute force.

Pyro looked up to what could have caused the door to go flying and… Oh.

_Well…_

**Fuck.**

Pyro let out a muffled yell as they were picked up by their sash. The force was harsh enough for the Phlog and homewrecker to fall off their person, the Eureka Effect falling as well amongst the debris. They drew out their shotgun and pumped it once, before firing it in the man face.

The man barely flinched as the bullets spread across the room, barely wounding the man he was being held by. 

Pyro let out a muffled  _ **Fuck**_ before they were thrown out the window they came in from.

* * *

 Soldier laughed as he sent three rockets down a long corridor filled with men. They all either splattered on the wall in a mist of red and body parts, or they retreated back into the hallway to escape from splash damage. He sent two more rockets down the empty corridor to deter anyone from following as he turned on a group of men with pistols behind him. They had taken cover with a giant metal table probably used for poker and only popped out to take random shots at him whenever they could. Soldier aimed at his own feet and sent himself flying into the air to throw off their aim.

Only one bullet seemed to find him and that barely grazed his shoulder. He let out the rest of his clip to rain down on the men below him, landing in a pile of blown apart bodies. 

"Maggots!" He yelled out in insult as he ran to the dispenser Demoman had put down.

He left the large room he was defending to run around the corner and refill his ammo as Demoman dusted off his hands from puncturing anotger oil drum. Pyro was probably dealing with some men in the back hallways far from the gas reserves, he might have to go check on the pyromaniac if he takes too much longer.

"Today, we have done our country proud!" Soldier saluted as the dispenser sent out a small beam to heal his shoulder wound.

"Ay." Demo agreed without correcting the man. "Where's Pyro at?"

"I haven't seen them." Soldier says, bringing out his shotgun to pump two shots into a man in special uniform. "You can yourselves an  _elite team_? I'll believe it when you give me twenty!"

Soldier's face was red and hard to read, but he turned back to Demo to wave goodbye with a smile. He moved back to the room and stood in the doorway to shoot off sone rockets, screaming as he did so.

Demoman watched him leave and eyes his sticky traps he left to guard the dispenser in his secret location. He shot off pills down a hallway and got a lucky pick on a man probably running for his life. Good. Its best no witnesses from this kind of company or business anyways.

There was a low shaking noise that made Demo eye the rattling ceiling in suspicion. That wasn't Soldier hitting the ceiling with a rocket, the man was still in Demoman's line of sight. Demoman slowly opened his pill launcher and started to reload the gun when... well, everything happened in his peripheral vision. 

The doorway down the only corridor Demo and Soldier weren't occupying suddenly exploded and the doorframe seemingly vanished in a spray of dust and debris. Pyro came flying out of the dust cloud, screaming, as they collided and tipped over the dispenser sitting behind the demolition expert.

Soldier and Demo stiffened. Slowly turning to the doorway that had just been fine a second ago and let their jaws drop. 

"Aw hell..." Demo swore, wide-eyed as he picked up Pyro from the broken machine below his body. 

" **You assholes aren't leaving here alive, do you hear me** **?** " Baroffio yelled, now standing about double his height and spewing golden light from his eyes. " **Your all dead meat, you hear?!** "

Soldier yelled and let out all of his clip, six rockets blasting Baroffio against the man's chest before taking off in Demo's direction. Demo ushered Soldier in front and readjusted the pyromaniac on his back. Once they were down the hallway and heading for the teleporter, their only hope out of this, he remembered Spy.

Demoman yelled at the top of his lungs, hoping Spy hadn't gone too far upward like he said he wouldn't. "RETREAT!"

* * *

Spy had gotten lucky with his find. He had taken to no using his cloak in stairwells and just gunned all the men he could as he ran up flights of stairs. And after he passed a certain glass hallway, he simply assumed Soldier got the better of some of those heavily armed men who wore the strange vests. 

But then he was an office, soundproof and isolated at the top of the stairs he was exploring last. His fingers twitched as he knew who that office belonged to.

The only man who could hold power around here.

Spy made his way to the door and knew it was locked from the inside before he even tried the handle. He knelt down and looked into the room through the small crack in the door to find any other locks that might keep him from getting in. He saw none and let out a cocky smile at the lack of security on the door.

He stood up and brought his Ambassador to his chest. He tested the wooden doors give and readied himself to draw his shoulder up. He rammed his shoulder into the door and felt it shudder under his weight. He looked around to make sure he was in the clear, heard the death and familiar explosion from downstairs, and turned back to the door.

He backed up to slam into the door a second time, hearing a whine of the lock. 

He backed up and rammed it a third time, hearing the lock snap but not give way.

He pulled back, even farther, and forced his body on it a fourth time. The doors hinges pooped as the lock broke the wall it was attached to when Spy made his entrance.

Spy had his revolver brought up upon his entry, leveling it with anything that could possibly be in the room for him to shoot. He moved it, left and right as he searched the room. It was a small office that had all it needed to look normal. An oak desk, calenders for this year and next year nailed in the wall back to back, paperwork and a tray for more work, two folded chairs in front of the desk and one nicer one behind it, and a TV with wires hanging out the back facing the person who owned the room. Spy inched his way inside and looked around for a closet or secret exit but there was no doors or indents in any of the rooms surfaces. He turned back to the door he came from and aimed down the corridor just incase anyone was sneaking around... and no one was there.

He let his weapon drop to his side and entered the room again. He looked around the room and made his way to the desk in the small, stable office. There were no personal items. No pictures, no cards for birthdays or Christmas, and even the calenders were bland. Not a very materialistic man.

Or a man who has something to hide.

Spy smiled as he pulled the chair out of his way to gain access to Baroffio's desk and drawers. He pulled up a paper on the top of the pile and read the paper as best he could. It was all in Portuguese, so he had a bit of a ride with what he was reading.

Almost as soon as he managed to realize it was a paper on taxes for the building electricity bill and water, he looked up at the screen on the desk.

He knelt down in shock as he watched the bottom most camera. Soldier was being crushed in the arm of a giant man, who was obviously Baroffio if you get past the fact he  _was glowing_ , and Soldier wasn't exactly down for the count. He was trying to aim his shotgun as he swing his shovel at the men's arm but was having the hardest time when Baroffio threw him across the room. 

Demoman was shooting pills like crazy as the sentry sent missiles to hit Baroffio. The combined blast pushed him back and made him fall over. 

Soldier scrambled to the teleporter, standing it on it as he pulled a grenades pin, throwing it to the monster on the other side of the room. He disappeared in a flash of red light as the hulking man caught the grenade to the face. The building shook in time with the grainy video, making Spy's heart drop in his stomach. The man in the pile of debris got up and Spy watched his last remaining teammate cry out something over and over as he backed up into the teleporter.

The pills exploded at random it seemed, showing just what Demoman was feeling as he started to teleport away. 

Baroffio picked up a part of the wall and threw it at Demoman, his muscles barely registering the weight as anything, and tossed it at the spot Demoman once stood.

The teleporter was crushed as the wall bounced off the floor and shattered pieces of the contraption, and crashed into the garage doors.

As the Australium filled man stomped his way to the sentry still shooting him, Spy grabbed the chair behind him and pulled it up. His legs had gone jelly on him and his head was starting to hurt.

When he sat down, he pinched his nose and squinted his eyes shut. He needed a cigarette.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually do these kind of chapters and I never want to again unless I'm prepared for it. :,)


	3. Pushing It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time for Sniper and Spy to actually do their jobs is now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me forever and I have no idea why! My next few chapters will be... shorter probably. But all about rescue and torture, and I'll having a warning attached to the chapters.

Sniper had long since been in the hotel room ready to pick up his team. And sadly, he had nothing to do as he waited for them to arrive through the teleporter.  
  
When he had arrived here, he made sure to park in the parking spaces nobody used on the right side of the building. He wasn’t about to use the front lobby to reach the room, and he decided it best to climb in the window that Pyro and Spy had left open from the entrance phase of the plan. He felt like a crook, sneaking in through the window of all things instead of using the damn door like a civilized human, but soon found it a good thing he hadn’t used the door as he found a fancy knife in the door. That would have just been embarrassing and down right suspicious if he had to leave the building to climb in the window with the night shift security on watch in the lobby.  
  
But now he was simply sitting on a musty bed he had patted to rid it of dust that had collected over time, and went through all the things the room had to offer as entertainment. The electricity in the room didn’t work, seeing as the TV had perfectly good wires and still couldn’t get any electricity in through the wall. That and the lights wouldn’t turn on when Sniper tried. Sniper had used the bathroom in the hotel room just fine and while a shower was tempting, he decided he was too jittery and his job as a getaway driver was too spontaneous for a shower. Who knows when they’d be through the portal.  
  
So, Sniper busied himself with the blueprint and the empty weapons crates they had brought in. Sniper cleaned up the crates a bit and fit as many of them in the giant box the flamethrower had come in as he could to make it easier for them all. Once he finished, the only things to carry out of here was the flamethrower crate and Demoman’s rocket launcher case, and he felt satisfied with his spent time.  
  
He felt satisfied. By cleaning up the operations of another team.  
  
Remind him why they couldn’t have used a Sniper for this mission?  
  
He looked at the board and pulled the pins that held down the blueprint in the cork, making it fold up in the corners where it had been stabbed a bunch from the planning phase. He rolled up the paper and stuffed it it the flamethrower case along with the cork board and sat on the bed.  
  
And that’s how he ended up sitting in the dark, staring at a wall while deep in thought. The clock in the room was too far into the darkness to even be properly read, so Sniper didn’t even dare to keep the time. He groaned after that thought ended and flopped backwards on the bed.  
  
Explain why he wasn’t sniping on this mission?  
  
He laid there, deep in thought at what could happen. After Demoman had turned off the radio on their way to the mission sight, Sniper had slowly made his way to the hotel in hopes of doing all that he could before returning to the hotel. While sneaking in the others was easy, coming back to the place he snuck people into was a bit suspicious. When he entered the town again, he got some weird glances from people who knew he’d been here before and decided to do the unbearable to blend in again. He slashed one of his own tires and blamed it on some bloke who probably didn’t even exist out in the woods who had the massive feat of issues; blaming Sniper for something with his car, stole some stuff of his from his van, and trying to guilt trip him into something crazy before Sniper drove away on his flat. Luckily, the locals believed it. And weirdly, the police said they’d pay for everything and hunt the guy down before proceeding to do nothing.  
  
This city has a lot more problems than Sniper cared to realize until now and he wanted no part of it anymore. He thanked the locals, got into his camper van with its new tire that shifted the weight of his van oddly, and took off into the back allies like a Spook to make his way to the hotel. This place was shady, and he wasn’t about to leave his team hanging any longer with him fumbling about with the police.  
  
After he’d parked here and snuck in through the window, he had been glad to be at his post, finally. All that lying and trickery made him feel like the Spook, and that made his skin crawl.  
  
But now, hours into his stake out and flat on his back on a bed, he wished he was sniping somebody. Usually when he was waiting so long he was waiting on a target to appear or show vulnerability, and had a sniper rifle snug in his hands as he waited for hours on end for an opportunity to show. His pointer finger was twitching against the sheets, remembering its years of training to hold swift reflexes for the right moment to squeeze the trigger at the drop of a dime.  
  
Sniper was better than this, and yet he couldn’t wait for his team to get back through a teleporter right beside him.  
  
Pathetic, really.  
  
Or, maybe…  
  
Before his thoughts could continue, there was a steady _whhooomp_ in the room and Sniper instinctively looked around for the teleporter while on his back. Somewhere between him doing the motions and standing up, his brain had rationalized it was his teleporter off beside the bed, and stared at it while it processed whoever was coming in from the entrance. Sniper expected the Spy to come through with a cigarette in between his fingers as he took a drag of it before stepping off the teleporter with grace; and usually Sniper wasn’t wrong most of the time unless Engineer, Heavy, or Medic was on the team and got first priority.  
  
But he was wrong, and he was startled when Pyro came through lying flat on their back on the teleporter. The arsonists limbs were all brought in as close to their body as they could muster to not tempt any teleporter mishaps that usually spawned from absolute nowhere. Sniper heard the small machine creak underneath the Pyro and Sniper quickly grabbed their arms to drag them off the teleporter to allow the machines spinning arms to get back to work.  
  
Now free of any obstructions, the teleporter started to spin faster, making a solid circle of light its speed. Another person was coming through, fast, and Sniper was sure his brain stopped processing what was happening when Soldier came through yelling like a madman. What had happened to for these two to get priority number one? Demoman had been so sure they’d be fine over the radio, but it seemed they had to retreat by the looks of it.  
  
Soldier walked backward off the teleporter and fell straight on the bed at his side, rocket launcher jostling underneath his weight but not set off by the rough treatment. The American’s legs were shaking a bit and his face was beat red while he gasp in the musty air of the hotel, all the while looking around the room frantically for something. Sniper was about to ask him a general question on what happened when Demoman came through the teleporter with a half cut off cry of some sort before he quieted down into pants of exhaustion. He stepped off the teleporter and swung around with a hard expression, before cursing. His one eye was cloudy and the Scot rubbed at it as he readied to sit down.  
  
“Damn, he isn’t here.” Demo swore, still taking breaths as he lowered himself on the bed next to Soldier. Once he sat down he made his hands cup the back of his neck and he leaned forward to slouch in his seat. “Damnit!”  
  
”Demo, wha’ happened out there?” Sniper made a face as he stared at the assembled team before him, noting the obvious problem as the teleporter spit its last rotation of activity before dying. He turned to it in shock as it died, no Spy anywhere to be seen. ”Oi! Demo, answers?”  
  
”The bloody prick had Australium or somethin’...” The man took a deep breath before meeting Sniper’s gaze. ”We’re about to torch the place and ’e comes throwin’ Pyro through a door… Is the lad alright?”  
  
Pyro let out a sting of grumbles; sounds that obviously were not meant to be words, or at least nothing that made remote sense in English. They sat up with muted popping noise in their moved limbs, and rolled their neck to get out any cracks there. They let out a pitiful moan as they seemed to assess the situation, and they noticed they had left Spy behind and they didn’t seem to like the idea of it with that monster in the warehouse.  
  
“Pyro, ya good mate?” Sniper looked at the arsonist as they brought their legs up to hug them, rocking gently as the Australian stared at them.  
  
“Yuuh mah.” Sniper can barely understand their mumbles, but the arsonist nodded after they made eye—lens—contact with Sniper, before their rocking intensified. “Shhuui?”  
  
“He’s not here, mate.” Demoman groaned. “Sniper’s been here and no Spy. And the teleporters down.”  
  
Pyro brought their legs in closer and rocked harder, making full body swings with the leverage they have from the ground, mumbling sadly as their knees shook.  
  
Sniper turned on them all, uncertain of something because his rigid expression, but he seemed sure. “Obviously, we have to go get the Spook, but how much trouble would we be in for doin’ so?”  
  
“With the Administrator? I have no right idea how she will feel with all that has happened tonight as is.” Demoman said, tapping his chin with his index finger in thought. “But leaving an operative behind? I have no clue. Especially with how, internationally, Spy is a treasure trove of useful…”  
  
The Scot was looking at the big picture, looking at Spy’s influence. While he felt bad deep down inside his heart for the Spy’s abandonment, he knew they’d have to go back in and get him if they wanted him alive. For Baroffio, who was a mafia and or crime lord in certain areas of the world, Spy would be a major trove of information. Hell, he’d probably wail on Spy for being apart of the team that slaughtered his work, safety, and workers before he started questioning him. But the Spy wasn’t a damsel, he couldn’t be captured so early from their retreat because to Spy, they should still be there with him. If he did get caught he’d try to escape first. And if he couldn’t, he popped cyanide in utterly hopeless situations. Demo didn’t want that to happen.  
  
Sniper, unable to read the thoughts Demo was mustering, did not see how forlorn his statement actually was and cracked a smug smile.  
  
“Mate, if you wanna save the Spook, just say it clearly.” Sniper gripped at him. Demoman ignored him as he seemed to squint into the corner of the room. Sniper frowned; okay then, looks like they’re going on a road trip back to where they came from. “We’re going back.”  
  
Sniper went behind the old, abandoned desk in the hotel room and pulled a drawer out roughly, snatching one of the small paper bags that must have been abandoned along with the room, and pulled his cold vacuüm flask from the water bottle holster at his hip. He wrapped the cool steel can into the bag and tied the top of the bag. He walked over to Pyro and handed it to them swiftly after he knelt at their side.  
  
“Nurse your aches.” He said swiftly. “You got thirty minutes. Everyone needs to be at their best.”  
  
Sniper stood up and turned around and was not too surprised to see Soldier face down in the bed, chest expanding evenly before shrinking just as evenly as he watched. Demoman was still sitting up and thinking, but never asked for anything as he seemingly planned away in his head. Pyro rolled to their side so their arms could aid them as they stood shakily, makeshift ice pack in hand and heading to the bathroom to calm their pain.  
  
Sniper sighed, dragging his feet all the way to the window to look at his van. They were going to have to haul ass back there, because there was no telling if the Spy was even able to escape. The debriefing showed them they were going to infiltrate a warehouse in the middle of nowhere-forest on a random dirt path created by an old mafia trail to escape the city, showing them just how secluded and paranoid the Italian family that owned it was. His van was going to be shot up and that was a given fact if he just drove in wildly looking for a fight. He cringed in the back of his mind. Maybe he could spare it’s untimely doom by parking them in the trees and they rocket jump, sticky jump, and climb their way in. They needed a getaway and if his vehicle blew up, Sniper couldn’t save the Spy, of all people.  
  
While it was a nice change of pace, the Spy wasn’t an idle prisoner for long. If memory serves right, when the Spy had last been caught, he had found a way out himself. Sure, Miss Pauling had talked to him about it and had not told the team more than “it was ridiculous, but he’s working again, so we can’t complain”. That suggests unorthodox methods.

And unorthodox methods could lead to unforeseeable outcomes. Which leads to unpredictable movement and decisions. And what’s to stop Spy from saving himself, getting the information, and fleeing? They’d be getting hurt, possibly killed, for a man who isn’t in need of saving.  
  
Or they could leave Spy to his own devices and hope he didn't die; losing trust in them upon his return to Mann Industries, if he ever did at all.

“Everyone needs to be at their best.” Sniper repeated as he looked at the sky. He was dead serious as he whispered, “And you better not be goddamn dead.”

* * *

Spy wiped his gloved hand over his face to relieve any and all distress or anxiety from rising into his brain. He may be a sly and charming person, but it was rather sudden and unwelcome situations like this that made him very numb and flighty. He was still human after all, and a hulking monster pumped with Australium stolen from the Administrator in a gas-filled warehouse was one reason he had to run for the hills or start a smoke.

But he couldn’t smoke. Not here. Not only would that give him away by scent and leave him compromised if someone got close enough to feel the heat pouring from his face, but it’d also leave a high chance of accidental starting a chain reaction if he dropped it or his lighter into any of the oil his team had spread around. No. No smoking. He’ll binge some later, but not here.  
  
He dropped his hand from his face, and looked at the small television at his side. The man was raving about something, but Spy couldn’t hear because of the television either being muted or the mic not working. He was glowing and pointing at all the destruction caused by himself more than what they caused interestingly, probably throwing a hissy fit about his livelihood and what the police would say if someone noticed the hole he caused in the wall. It was probably for the best he was distracted for a bit as Spy had just gotten here and still had no intel on anything except the fact there was Australium on base.  
  
Spy got up from the cheap leather chair and grimace as him sitting in the chair would leave evidence of expensive suit pollen and texture leftover from contact with Spy himself, and he had no idea if this place will actually go up in flames in the end but its best he be careful from here. While he knew Baroffio probably wasn’t the type to swab down his instruments to find evidence, he still felt bad for the slip up. He pushed the chair out of range and slowly bent in front of the desk.  
  
He looked at the five drawers in the desk, two on each side of the seat by the legs and one above where the lap would be if someone sat down. He saw the biggest two on the bottom of each side did not have locks on them and he smiled, for that narrowed it down to the three at the top. He pulled out his Balisong and a small cup to hear the clicking inside the lock as he went. He pushed his ear against the small cylinder to ready himself for the clicks where he could hear them.  
  
The thin blade slipped in and he heard the scrapping of the two different types of metal through the cup and felt his knife come to a sudden halt as its swedge thickened around on the top part of the keyhole. He wiggled the knife handle gently to see if there was any give in the weapon or keyhole before taking a long breath. He turned the knife and felt the keyhole slowly give to the thin metal weapon, he felt his knife slightly give around its kicker and coil but kept on going. This weapon has killed many people from stab wounds to the back and spinal cord, and it had seen better days when used to break into things as it was not the knife he used to pick locks, but he pressed on until he eventually worked the drawer into a reluctant ‘click’.  
  
The drawer was automatically pushed against his leaning head and knife as it wanted to opened from its spring-locked state. As he pulled his knife out and rested the cup in a small pocket inside his coat, he watched as the drawer slowly pushed itself open. Spring-lock drawer. Expensive for a place like this.  
  
But, he did not care. He went through his paperwork, most in Portuguese, he scoffed at all he might have to take. Better be through then forget something important, as always. He slowly went through them one by one before spotting paperwork in a familiar language. English. He pulled it up and noticed it was a return policy between two participants who were exchanging weapons and on the sender's side, a lot of Australium. The sender, with blocky but grand handwriting, had promised all these items and needed a signature and money from the receiver before they could send it trustfully. The second handwriting, large but petite in thickness with beautifully calligraphy, put an amount and a small snarky comment on how they always deliver. There was no personal name, as the receiver simply wrote, Administrator in the box. Spy stopped reading and looked at the paperwork underneath it. And at the bottom, was confirmation of shipment box to sign, but it wasn’t. It never got back to the sender.  
  
It was all coming with him. He looked at the desk and saw a small satchel, something you’d see on a college student, and he snatched it. Some of the papers didn’t fit perfectly so he had to fold some in half as he piled them in. No telling what he grabbed, but he had evidence on paper that he truly needed. Evidence that Baroffio had cheated the Administrator.  
  
Spy, in between the shuffling of papers, heard the stairs down the hall give a squeal. Spy stopped folding the papers so loudly and kept going, just slower, as he listened in. The floor shook gently, this part of the building actually being made of cheap material as he heard and felt the gentle vibrations of the gas slick stairs being stomped on by at least a pair of men. He let out a deep breath through his nose and looked at the window behind him. Last option. He looked at the emergency stairwell he’d come from, shutting the satchel tight. That was his way out, and he was going to have to overtake it soon. He pulled the strap over his torso and onto his shoulder before leveling his pistol at the minimum head level he’d expect from soldier’s on patrol. He rushed past the desk as he heard the footsteps hit the top of the stairs and squashing through the soaked carpet, but they soon hit dry carpet someone hadn’t finished gasing yet. Heavy footsteps rattled the calendar and…  
  
Spy used the door as cover, but he threw it open when he saw the peaking of armor around the corner. He shot the first man and saw the shadow of a man fall to the floor without his left eye, but he was too busy on the second men in the line. He shot again but had to duck mid-pull of the trigger as the third man, behind his friend, shot out with an upgraded SMG. The second fell, but not dead, as his entire shoulder erupted with blood and cartilage from the botched shot. When Spy retreated back into the room, he waited for the enemy to advance before using the lacking door again as cover. He felt the ground let out a low growl from a lot of weight distribution and Portuguese flying colorfully outside, and he threw the door open with his shoulder as hard as he could to hit the man leaning down. He saw the legs of the man he stunned and knocked over threw the glass of the door and shot around it twice into the man’s upper torso. The third man was dead on top of his squirming friend, who Spy quickly ended with a revolver shot in the head.  
  
All three men had sunglasses thicker than any prescription glasses he had yet to see naturally, but they lacked proper helmets in case of headshots. But judging how Spy killed one of them, the glasses weren’t much.  
  
He brushed himself off from all the wood that had pelted him from the SMG rounds, and he took off. No doubting there were not only more men who would come scouting, but people who heard and will follow immediately.  
  
He took off for the emergency stairwell he had used to get up here and took as many steps he could at a times as he descended. He didn’t hear anyone following him down the metal stairs and he cloaked just as he reached the bottom. This was where he had split off from Demoman as he cut into oil drums down the hallway and vaulted over a busted wall thanks to Soldier. But now he noticed the two secure doors that had been busted open like hollow paper lead into two different fates. He could see the escape route he needed, it led to a car of some sorts that hadn’t been doused in gas or broken from all the raging Baroffio had done through here. He could risk it, but there were too many logical arguments keeping him from blindly cornering himself.  
  
The garage is locked shut, how would he get out? He had no guarantee of a key in the vehicle, how was he to even start it? Was it even hotwire-able? It was too risky, but he had yet to see the room fully. Perhaps there was a manual switch for the gate and keys in an open drawer just for Baroffio’s convenience.  
  
But he next room froze him in place from pursuing escape.  
  
The hallway had been glass and pressure plates now exposed and hanging wires from parts of the ceiling and walls, showing the traps clear as day. There had been a one-way window near the end, but the busted up oil drum against the opposite wall shows why it shattered. Glass of black and white shards littered the ground and ringed around a burned and charcoal body still being licked gently from flames. Pyro had definitely been through here as he saw the arsonists entire weapon kit strewn about the floor randomly. The door at the end of the hallway busted and crushed like it was a folding door, hanging from its hinges, and behind it the glow of golden bars and golden powder in barrels illuminated the horrors in a sunlight.  
  
Spy tightened his jaw as he saw the Eureka Effect between him and the room, tempting him with freedom. And the room provided him evidence for the Administrator. It was like a miracle.  
  
But the Eureka Effect was out in front of the window suspiciously, almost like a trap. What good was a trapped escape when he could scout the car?  
  
That would take too long, searching the garage that is. Escape was right in front of him with that wrench.  
  
He could get some more evidence from that room… but what if that cut into his time to teleport.  
  
His mind was at war with itself, and it was fighting longer then he’d like it to. This situation was bad and not in the favor of someone who chose the wrong path, which Spy inclined to believe was his fate if he was so irrational in thought already. Perhaps Soldier and Demoman were rubbing off on him, dulling his skills with their brute force on the front lines and leaving his fate unknown upon the strange turn of events, but he did not blame them. He had grown complacent and dependent on their distractions and loud noises from years in dusty battlefields. But he knew he wasn’t down and out yet. He has many voices in his head telling him many missions, solo missions, he had done just fine against unwavering bad odds. Mercenary Park excluded.  
  
He pulls himself into the glass shattered room and held his breath as best he could, and he reached quickly for the Eureka Effect. His long legs carried him across the gas and glass below his Italian shoes, and once he reached the wrench he swooped its stained surface into his gloved hand.

The weapon was no stranger to Spy. It was familiar, if uneven in its weight, but Spy had held this wrench before. It was the only thing familiar about this whole situation, so Spy was willing to take the easy way out as long as Pyro filled up the wrench with metal and kept the teleporter up. Had they taken it down? Hopefully not.

Spy raised the wrench above his head swiftly and gripped the steel handle waving it like Engineer had shown him and Soldier, as Pyro and Demoman had already known how to do it. Deoman had laughed at Spy’s expense when he waved the wrench too hard for his loose grip and dropped it n his head, but at least he kept quiet after that less he would have gotten hit. Soldier had gotten it right the third try, but had made Engineer suffer a bruised toes and cracked his on helmet. How? Spy didn’t know. He had walked away after he had gotten a thumbs up from Engineer.

He let the wrench power up and when he heard the powering up noise that sounds like it was going to teleport him. It should have, but why is he not being swooped away in a flash of light? Had his stance been wrong? Had it been damaged by Baroffio, who had charged the halls?

Spy heard footsteps on the metal stairwell he had come from, and he heard a few more somewhere nearby the stairs slicked with oil. He didn’t have time to dwell on the wrench, or his team’s teleporter which wouldn’t teleport him. He had to survive until he could search his secondary escape in the garage. He turned to the door filled with Australium, seeing all the possibilities for a standoff in the room, but mostly seeing his demise. He saw the men spraying SMG rounds after what they must have seen at the top of the stairs, he saw the possibility for a double-teamed attack. But he saw his victory as well. Of aiming true down the hall from the corner, or using his knife and gun back to back to escape. He should probably use his knife mostly, to not gain attention from others nearby.

He walked into the room full of Australium as he heard the men behind him give chase. They jumped off the last of the stairs to yell and point at him, watching as he disappeared behind the tables and barrels of Australium. They stopped just a bit before the door and started to argue. Spy quietly started to reload his gun, because if they don’t come to him he’ll shoot them from a distance to clear his path. He had to get out.

“If you step in, your on your own!” One complained, voice shrill. “You seen what was upstairs. And what his pals have done.”

“You are stupid.” The second one wasn’t fluent in English, his accent was thick enough for Spy to groan internally. “He is one man.”

“One man who obviously knows what he’s doing!” The first growled and there was a small pause before the first became agitated. “You enter, I lock you in with him! The door still functions.”

“What?” Asked the second.

_What?_

Spy’s heart stopped as he heard them discussing how to close the door, and he struck. He was not staying here to get locked in a cement box. He wasn’t staying for Baroffio to torture or kill.

He pulled himself out from behind the tables and shot the first man he saw. It was a thg covered in tattoos and with the nastiest wife-beater Spy had seen in awhile. His head exploded as the bullet entered his head and randomly left it the easiest way it could, gray matter spraying the empty air and covering the wall next to him. His friend, obviously the more fluent of the two, ducked and hid behind the metal door. Spy couldn’t shoot him like that so he ran for the door and hopped the man would trip on the glass, blood, and oil below him. The man started to shut the door and Spy hit the metal side right before it was closed enough to lock him in. He pushed, using all the strength fighting in a gulch against a roster of men much stronger then he, but it wasn’t working. Behind him, Spy could hear the sound of cartilage tearing slowly as he and the other man pushed the door against each other. And slowly, blood pooled from under the door and around Spy’s italian shows.

He wanted to gag. The man had propped his dead friend up underneath the door as a doorstop. Not the worst he’s seen, but a defilling of his buddy’s corpse.

“When I get out, you’ll meet your end swiftly.” Spy cursed and pushed harder with his back and shoulder.

The other man whined a bit before yelling out into the building as the body belo hm started to give, but holding enough to allow him to keep Spy trapped. He yelled for reinforcements. He yelled for help.

Spy heard a group of footsteps coming from somewhere outside the wall. Shit.

He heard the faintest of tremors, almost like a machine was up and walking. Taking its weight and stuttering the whole building.

 _Shit_.

He tried to push, he tried. He wasn’t aniking yet, bu his heart was beating fast at the nearby footsteps as the body barely budged. He pulled out the Eureka Effect and tried his escape once more before the men swarmed the door he was against and heard nothing but the sound of a wrench that couldn’t find an exit teleporter anywhere.

_Shit._

* * *

The Sniper pulled out of the hotel using the back way into the slums around the building. He looked at Pyro beside him and the arsonist was polishing the Panic Attack on their lap. It was the only shotgun Sniper had in his van as backup, because Soldier and Pyro had failed to pack more supplies than one extra Panic Attack and a spare Fire Axe. And Pyro seemed a bit uneasy using the Fire Axe for a serious mission.

And Sniper could relate. Kinda. Pyro seemed so much more at home with a hammer or sign, and the axe was dull from its past uses in Sniper’s van to help him get wood when he camped. And it wasn’t sharpened enough to not be torture to use. But when has that stopped Pyro?

Sniper heard Demoman wrestling something in the back and pulled out his walky-talky to see what the ruckus is.

He pressed the button. “Demo, what’s all the noise?” He released it and held it close to his ear as he drove one-handed.

The radio clicked and Demo’s voice came through with static. “The teleporter opened but it's taking forever. Any ideas why?"

Pyro paused from tapping the axe as Sniper talked into the walkie-talky to give Demoman a 'no' before going back to driving with both hands. Pyro patted their chest and felt their empty sash give under his hands weight. The Eureka Effect wasn't there. That was bad, who knows who's got the wrench. Who knows who'll cone through?

_Spy!_

**The Enemies.**

Pyro felt conflicted, they almost reached over to get the walkie-talky from the area between them and Sniper when it suddenly buzzed back to life.

"It's offline, nobody back here." Demo's voice said and it turned off again.

Sniper didn't react, but noticed Pyro's heavier and more jittery tapping on their axe. It probably wasn't too much to fuss about, Pyro was probably stressed out about walking into that place again. They were safe for now since no one came through.

He was right about Pyro being stressed, but it wasn't for themself. It was for Spy, and nervously wondering who had tried to use their teleporter.


End file.
